


What Goes Unseen

by Aqualina_Sky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Family, Depression, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Insomnia, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 03:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16468205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aqualina_Sky/pseuds/Aqualina_Sky
Summary: They’re not who you think they are. Of course, you see what everyone sees. You see how they save the world, you see how they fight, how they work as a team, but you don’t see below the surface. You don’t see everything.Basically, I hate how the Marvel characters issues are never addressed so I addressed them





	What Goes Unseen

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything. Just wanted to address the issues I have with the way the superheros of the marvel verse are treated.

I

They’re not who you think they are. Of course, you see what everyone sees. You see how they save the world, you see how they fight, how they work as a team, but you don’t see below the surface. You don’t see everything. 

You don’t see the Captain waking himself up screaming, because it’s the heater is out, and it’s dipped below seventy degrees. He’s terrified that he’s in the ice again, (He remembers it. Days and weeks and months he was awake and aware it was so fucking cold cold coldcoldcold never gonna be warm.) He’s scared that he’s gone back to sleep and it’ll be months or years or decades before he wakes up again, and everyone’s going to be gone. 

You don’t see the Man of Iron after he’s been awake for a week straight, looking like coffee is the only thing keeping him awake (sometimes he wonders if it’s all that’s keeping him alive. He so tired. So fucking tired all the time but he can’t sleep. The demons in his head are waiting on him to sleep) He just wants to make one more thing to make up for all the harm he’s caused. All the lives he’s taken. Just one more prosthetic, one more bandage, one more to make up for everything he’s done wrong. 

You don’t see the Big Green Monster when he’s small and smart and shy and so very, very kind. You don’t see him as he lies awake at night, going through a mental list of all the wrong he’s done, on how everything is his fault. You don’t see him when a Little Red Ballerina or a Hawk-Eyed Man pull him back from a ledge because maybe, just maybe this will be what can finally do him in. Maybe this time the Monster won’t be able to save him. (He ignores their whispers that the Monster will just go on a rampage and add to his list of sin, to his list of death. He just wants it to be over) 

You don’t see the Little Red Ballerina when she scrubs her hands until they’re puffy and bruised because dammit she can see the blood and it’ll never go away and she can never atone and she just wants to atone goddammit, goddammit, goddammit, please please please, just let her atone. You don’t see the Little Red Ballerina when the Soldier created of Winter and the Hawk-Eyed man hold her between them, gentle and whispering that’s she good, she’s kind, she’s atoning, it’ll be okay. (She can’t tell them that she can see the blood up to her elbows and it’s fucking dripping and she’s never going to be able to wipe out the red.) 

You don’t see the Thunder God when he sits and sobs because he’s lost everything (Even the brother he always swore to protect, and it’s all his fault, it’s all his fault, please, take me instead) and he just wants to go back and make it right. He wants to protect everyone from every mistake he’s made, but god, he’s got a tally and it never seems to end, he’s doing more harm than good and everyone’s dying, everyone’s dying (He can’t see the way his family tries to surround him, even when he can’t see them, because he’s doing his best and he’s saving people and they’ll always love him, even when he’s acting like a child) 

You don’t see the Hawk-Eyed man when he’s quiet (so quiet, the Little Red Ballerina hates it, he’s too quiet and that means he’s blaming himself and she hates it when he blames himself because he’s so good why can’t he see that he’s so good) When he falls apart only within his mind, because he thinks he’s caused enough problems. He doesn’t deserve his family, or his Little Red Ballerina or his team because all he is is weak and useless and he hates it. He hates not being special like the rest of them, so he tries to make it up by being good at what he does but shit, it’s not enough, and they’re fucking hurt and it’s all my fault 

You don’t see the Boy of Spiders, who just wants to be like everyone else, but instead he’s special (He’s a goddamned monster, and he knows it, and he’s going to get his friends hurt one of these days when someone figures out his secret, and it’s going to kill May, and how can he do this to her??) You don’t see him when everything is too much, and too bright, and too loud, and he can’t breathe (he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, please someone help, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, Ican’tbreatheIcan’tbreatheIcan’tIcan’tIcan’t) 

You don’t see the Soldier created of Winter, when he can’t sleep because it’s too hot, and he’s not allowed to sleep when his handler sleeps (The Captain hates when he says that, lost in a delierum of pain and exhaustion and everything coming back) He can’t sleep at all, but they won’t put him back in cryo and he just wants to sleep and not think because thinking means he’s aware of everything he’s done wrong and can’t take back, because he was too slow, too weak to get the Captain’s hand a seventy years is a long time to go through what he went through and he doesn’t want to remember, doesn’t want to keep going, but he made a promise (I’m with you ‘till the end of the line pal) and it’s not the end of the line yet. 

You don’t see the Machine oF War, and how he tries so hard, (All the time, dammit I just want to walk, I just want to walk and live and breathe and I can’t and it’s too much and please let me not have to anymore) because he’s useless and he can’t fly, and he can’t fight, and he can’t even fucking walk and he just wants to walk, and he wants to be there for the kid because the Man of Iron is killing himself and it’s slow enough no one can stop it and he just wants to take care of his best friend, but he can’t because he’s so fucking useless. 

You don’t see the Scarlet Witch, and the way she shuts herself away for days at a time, because there’s so much input (And not enough fast, not enough blue, not enough of her darling brother who loved her so dearly and now he’s dead and he’s gone and her heart is gone and she’s never getting it back, not ever, and she’s so broken) because everyone’s mind is in hers and she just wants her own mind back. She doesn’t want to have everyone else there in her head and she can’t bring him back and she can’t make them go away and everything is just too much. 

You don’t see Falcon Man, his wings too bent and broken (and invisible, but everyone swears he’s a fucking angel) and he was up there to just watch them go down and it’s his fault, he should have been faster, stronger, better, dammit, he was good at his job but one is dead and the other can’t walk and it’s all his fault and he can’t do anything to make it better 

You don’t see the flying Vision, who’s so young, so naïve, (But he doesn’t sleep and sometimes he doesn’t breathe for hours at a time, and he may be alive, but he’s not living, not yet) and the way he stares for too long, forgets that he wants to be human, because he doesn’t need what his teammates need, and they’ll be dead long before he’ll ever understand being human and god help him, it scares him 

You don’t see the Man of Ants, and the way his every waking moment is haunted by everything he did wrong. By his little girl who’s too far away always and his teammate and best friend partner everything who won’t even look him in the eye because he fucked up, he fucked up and there’s no way he can ever make it better. And sometimes he’s gone in his mind for hours without realizing it because he saw things when he was so tiny he couldn’t be found and it was beautiful but it was terrifying and sometimes he wakes up sure he’s just a dream and nothings real, nothing at all. 

You don’t see the Panther, and the way he tries so hard to be a good man, a good king, the way he struggles to hold onto himself through the stress of holding onto his country and the way they all sometimes look at him with a bit too much awe, and he knows he’s on a pedestal and he doesn’t want to screw it up. He wants to take care of his people and his family and friends and dammit he can do this (he can do this, I can do this, I canIcanIcanIcanIcan; I can’t do this I’m just a kid and I don’t want to but dammit I’ve got to) 

You don’t see them when it’s three A.M. and they can’t sleep but their minds can’t handle anything more intense than a goddammed cartoon because they’ve seen too much, been through too much. They just want peace but they can’t have, they’re too special and the world needs them, but the world doesn’t want them and they have to go through months of therapy, of struggling. They haunt the halls like ghosts because prowling is better than sleeping, and they lose themselves in the sweat of pounding a punching bag, throwing themselves through obstacle courses, pouring over maps and plans and what-ifs, anything to stay awake one more day, one more hour, one more minute because staying awake is better than the nightmares better than what’s waiting for them the moment they slip. 

You don’t see that. You only see what you want to, a bunch of hero’s who make mistakes, because they’re human. But they don’t want gratitude. They don’t want attention. They want the world to be left alone. (They just want to be left alone, please just leave them alone) Instead, they face down the press with smiles on their faces (and guns in their hands because they just want it to stop and maybe they would be left alone if they died, please just let them die) and quips on their tongues (God help them, it’s easier than the truth because the truth it they’re just so fucking tired and they can’t sleep) and they force themselves to face each and everything threat, to make the world not have to hand the burden on their shoulders. (But at least they have each other, The Captain and the Soldier created from Winter, who look after the Little Red Ballerina and the Hawk-Eyed man, and the Falcon who looks after the Captain and the Soldier the Big Green Monster, and the Man of Iron who is watched by them all, they all have each and that’s enough. It’s enough.)


End file.
